A Historic Break With the Crisis Years
Greece’s Ministry of National Economy and Finance described the move as a historic milestone. After a decade of bailouts between 2010 and 2018, enhanced surveillance from 2018 to 2022, Greece’s classification as a country with excessive macroeconomic imbalances from 2019 to 2024 and its classification as a country with macroeconomic imbalances in 2025, the country is now returning to the European norm.
The ministry said the significance of the development was even greater because it came at a time when 10 European Union member states are subject to the excessive deficit procedure. According to the ministry, the decision pointed not only to a dramatic improvement in Athens’ fiscal position, but also to the reduction of external imbalances and structural economic weaknesses to a level where they no longer pose a systemic risk to economic stability.
Among the factors highlighted in the European Commission’s report was Greece’s resilient GDP growth of 2.1% in 2025, despite global uncertainty, along with a forecast of continued strong expansion.
The Commission also pointed to the persistently high primary surplus, which reached 1.7% of GDP in 2025, and to the significant decline in public debt, which is projected to fall to 123.4% of GDP in 2027, one of the fastest rates of debt reduction in Europe. It also cited the country’s wide-ranging reforms and rapid progress in digital transformation, particularly in taxation and public administration.
The Commission noted that Greece had implemented cohesion policy programs faster than the EU average and that the Recovery and Resilience Facility had helped support investment and reforms designed to strengthen competitiveness and resilience.
It also said the scope of the existing national escape clause could be extended, under certain conditions, to cover spending and investment that strengthen energy security and reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.
Mitsotakis Hails End of EU Surveillance
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis welcomed the European Commission’s decision, saying it marked “the official end of any monitoring”.
“A negative chapter that opened 16 years ago is now closing, with our country fully restoring normality to its economy”, he wrote on Facebook.
The development, he said, had not happened by chance, but was “the result of the hard work of both citizens and the state” and “the foundation on which a better life is built”.
According to Mitsotakis, the decision allows “surpluses to translate into higher wages and pensions, reforms to create new jobs, public debt to decline and the new generation to be relieved of old burdens. And collective growth to gradually transform into individual prosperity”.
“We are walking firmly on the path of dynamic progress. With confidence and perspective”, he added.
(luc)
